Intel. A chip off the old Bloc

My handler told me: no names. My post, the first 'intelligence blog' to appear on the web - to the best of my knowledge - won't mention pseudonyms, pet-names, pen-names or code names. I told 'Z' - not my handler's code-name, just a smokescreen - that I am more interested in what the people do than what they’re called. And 'Z' said, I can't mention what they do either.

So what is it we get up to in our 'community'? Though of course I can't say explicitly, I can hint: We follow you. We follow you, just as you follow us. How do we know you follow us? Because we see you every day, scanning, searching, logging on to certain sites – I’m not talking just intelligence websites, but also affiliates sites. We know how you think. We even know how you will think before you think. How so? Yes, how so?.

It’s what you people refer to as 'conspiracy theory'.

Right now the intelligence community is concerned that the conspiracy theory we know and love is losing traction, is out of control. Why? What do I mean by out of control? I will phrase it in a way that is not what you’d call prosaic, not literal: I say, too many conspiracy theories spoil the broth. And I hear you say, prosaic? What this guy's just given us is a mixed metaphor - pure and simple.

Perhaps. But it is a mixed metaphor that I have wanted to deploy for some time. And why? Because I know that it will distract you, just for one moment, from what I'm leading to. Have you got that? Probably not... but then again, you might've... if you happen to be that person whose IP address (starting 134.135...) vanished from my monitor just 0.93 seconds ago! Don't worry, we can trace your IP, even after its vanished!

We invented conspiracy theories and we invented them to make you afraid. You don't realise this, you probably cannot accept it, and never will. But it's true. We’ve always wanted you to think that nothing controversial happens unless a powerful organisation makes it happen. Unless a covert governmental agency planned it that way. And you have always bought the notion. But one day, my friends, you ran too far with them, these theories, and you made them your own. Now that can't be right, can it? They are not your theories, they are ours. We created them. So hey guys could you please just give us back our darned theories? (That's tongue in cheek, in case you were unaware.)

Or don't you guys just f- get it? You see, if you can get your heads round 'information overload', why can't you get them round 'conspiracy overload'? Who the hell will believe conspiracies any more if for every famous death, there are ten thousand theories? Next year, there will be a hundred thousand theories for some guy who's one tenth as big. And maybe, one day, there’ll be millions for just your average Joe. No one will believe the theories any more. They'll be meaningless. And where's the point in that?

So, cool your jets. Cut the theories. If you want anyone to believe in anything ever again, then stop dicking around with all this, 'my belief's as good as the next guy's' shit. Some things are true and some things are not - except when we insinuate that they are. And if you keep on spreading too many theories, then maybe we'll find who you are, we'll track your IP addresses, because we’re starting to think that the only reason you'd possibly want people to stop believing in them (by spreading so many theories of your own) is because you are the enemy. The real enemy. The enemy of a community that does theories good and proper.

You see this is the point: The silicon chip, the internet, the web, they were never meant to be about democratizing things like knowledge and truth... or conspiracy theories for that matter. And that's because it's no longer a case nowadays of, ye shall know truth and the truth shall set ye free. It's, ye shall know what you need to know, so that technology can set you free. But you have to learn how to use technology first. And that, as we all know, is a discipline. Right, disciples? Right.

Think about that. Because, we do. We think about it. Every day.

And ask yourself one last question - assuming that you have read this far: What did I mean earlier when I talked about my handler? Maybe, just maybe, I am the handler not the handled? And how do you know that anyone ever really told me what I could or could not say? After all, I have said quite a lot, have I not? But then, of course, that's your problem to answer, not mine.

Yours abidingly and faithfully, Colonel Kurtz (And if you want to believe that's my real name then be my guest. In actual fact, it really is. Francis F. stole it from me, not the other way round!)

PS. A friend of mine tells me this: Next year, a butterfly will flap its wings in the Brazilian rain forest and there’ll be a million theories as to why it did. But, in reality there is only one theory that's correct, guys. Only one. Think on it.

On this occasion our 'intelligence blogger' very kindly agreed to provide us with his real name on account of the fact that the Disney trademark had expired. However we are not convinced that it is out of trademark and are therefore witholding it